


Darkness and Barren Trees

by goodnightsweetprince



Category: The Book of Mormon - Parker/Stone/Lopez
Genre: M/M, its a ship not a sick mcdonalds poptart ripoff, this is mcpoptarts and you can fight me
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-20
Updated: 2018-03-22
Packaged: 2019-02-15 18:18:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,832
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13036761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goodnightsweetprince/pseuds/goodnightsweetprince
Summary: {Originated from a story idea I had about 6 months ago. It was called "Darkness and Trees," but this takes place in Uinta County, Wyoming, so... enjoy!}Chris and Isabella Thomas were inseparable twins, best friends along with Connor McKinley (the "gay cousin," he called himself, despite not being related). But Chris was sent off to boarding school a long time ago, and Isabella doesn't have the best luck. A serial killer called AED, a weird sort of afterlife, and a first kiss later, what will Chris do when he has to choose between his sister and his boyfriend?





	1. flatlining

**Author's Note:**

  * For [neverbirds](https://archiveofourown.org/users/neverbirds/gifts).



> I KEPT TYPING "CHRIST" INSTEAD OF "CHRIS" AAAAAGH
> 
> Anyway, hope you like it! Stay tuned for chapter 2.
> 
> For @neverbirds because I was inspired to write this after reading your works!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Isabella Thomas, a perky 16-year old suffers a terrible turn of fate.
> 
> ~ SPOILERS IN THE TRIGGER WARNINGS ~ 
> 
> Trigger warnings include:
> 
> \- suggestions of grief: Chris sobs over the phone.
> 
> \- major character death: Isabella is assaulted and murdered by a serial killer.
> 
> A summary of this chapter will be provided in the summary of the next chapter for those who wish to skip this chapter.

My breath comes in weak, shaky pulses. No, not because I'm dying. Because I'm watching myself die. I, Isabella Thomas, watch myself hack up blood. I watch my own eyes roll back into my head. And I watch the last tendrils of my soul slide into me, making my thumbs. Finally, it was hard enough climbing down from the tree without thumbs. How can I do this? My body is dying in front of me, and I'm feeling lightheaded. There's a cut along my stomach that looks like a flatlining pulse, and I know it was AED who did this. He's a serial killer and his victims all end up with a flatlining cut somewhere on them. Never seen one as big as mine before though. I saw him right before they ripped my soul out. First I was just a small "soul ball," then my body formed around me. But a diagonal cut along my elbow and one above my kneecap, plus a diagonal one along with my right kneecap, all still show on me now but holding a 1-inch gap between the limbs around the cut. Basically, I'm a jumble of floating pieces. Weird, I know. But now I know I'll be someone, anyone's guardian. My mind wanders back to the situation at hand- someone shot AED, so that's good, but the police are looking over my dead body. And then I remember- Lavern.

Chris is, or was, my best friend and brother. His pale skin always looked darker than it was thanks to our parents. They sent him to some fancy boarding school, turned him into a robot. Always showed up at my house, posture straight, wearing his dress shirt, suspenders (it's a really old school), and dress pants. He changed into the normal clothes we kept at his friend's house for him and we'd go crazy. But before he'd leave, we'd always spend 30 minutes getting him back the exact way she came. Ironing his clothes, fixing his hair, all with a smile and a million inside jokes. Now Chris was off at boarding school, about to get a call from the police. I had an emergency contact list in my front pocket they're now pulling out. It's got my mom, dad, and Chris's names and phone numbers written in cursive, minus Chris, who wrote his in his textbook-perfect handwriting. It's amazing what those private schools do to people, making them impeccable little robots who don't feel. 

AED ran. And the officers pulled out their phones. One dialed so slow I thought I might die a second death before he pressed call (that one called dad), another one went really fast and messed up about 15 times (that one called mom), and the other typed fast and got it right the first time, who by process of elimination called Chris. Chris, who would miss it until his 9th ring, because "poptarts" had 8 letters in it and he would spell it out when he got the call. 

My Chris was about to learn that his sister was dead. Chris Thomas, the Poptart addict who was close friends with Connor McKinley and had about 10 online friends. Half the reason he’s not here with me. But isn’t that good? That he isn’t here? He would’ve been killed too. Better me than him. I already had no future. What’s done is done.

I see the one talking to Chris put his phone up to his ear. He’s talking. I move closer and start to hear him.

“Are you ‘Chris Thomas _slash_ Poptarts?’” the officer asks, aloof despite it being a murder scene. I hear Chris’s voice tremble as he responds a quick yes. Poor kid. He’s probably in the bathroom, missing something in Trigonometry or Calculus or whatever he’s learning in 10th grade. “I am Officer Harold of the Uinta County Police Department or UCPD. You are on Isabella Thomas’s ‘emergency contact list’ and I regret to inform you that she has been assaulted and murdered. We suspect it’s AED, the infamous serial killer vexing local police forces, as she has a cut along her torso resembling a flatlining pulse.” 

The other side of the call goes dead for a minute. Then all that can be heard is sobs. Long, heavy sobs. Not very loud, but I can practically see the globs of tears falling down his face. Just like when we were younger. He was riding his bike, and he lost control, turned onto the path Ma and Pa told us to never go on and fell face down into the concrete. He lost a tooth (a baby one, thankfully) and hit his knee really hard. Our parents noticed because he was screaming. Ma told him that we wouldn’t take him to the dentist or the hospital (for his tooth and knee, respectively) because he had turned and did something that wasn’t right. He had buckled to God’s temptation and therefore would have to pray for forgiveness. He’s had a weak knee ever since.

“I-I have to go–” Chris choked out before he hung up. My heart shattered into a million pieces. The officer was infuriated that Chris happened to hang up before he offered consolation, but he tried to hold it in to be professional. 

Now was when I began feeling slightly vertiginous. I looked down at my fading body with a certain apprehension and this was followed by my slowly moving upwards. The officers calling mom and dad hung up, but I couldn’t hear anything. There was the sound of a fan, some sort of white noise. My vision began to grow cloudy, like I had cataracts, but not. I tried to cry out, but the fruits of my labors were not plentiful, as I was silenced with a feeling resembling a small hand down my throat. 

Another thought drowned out even these noises- one that I’ll not utter to you for fear of being listened to. 

My vision is fading to black. 


	2. pulse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We see through Chris's eyes as he receives a fateful call from the police down in Evanston, Wyoming, who have some bad news. Also known as real depressing intro to Chris.
> 
> ~~ SPOILERS IN THE TRIGGER WARNING SECTION~~
> 
> Trigger warnings include:
> 
> \- suggestions of suicide: Chris asks why she should live on after Isa dies.
> 
> \- adverse reactions to death: Chris, obviously, transfers through a mix of mania and depression during this chapter.
> 
> A summary of this chapter will be provided in the summary of the next chapter for those who wish to skip this chapter.

My phone rings. I shut it off and walk over to poor Mrs. Browne, epitome of enthusiastic midlife crisis suffering. She’s probably wondering why she decided to teach Calculus for a bunch of rowdy teenagers. Moreso, over half of those teens are troublemakers. Not me. No, Ma and Pa decided that since I was not “making friends” in Uinta, they should send me away from Isa and Connor and all I’ve known to some boarding school where they’d “make a man out of me.” Then I’d go off on my mission, come back, go to BYU (Brigham Young University), and go do something with my life. I’d get a job somewhere, and a nice Mormon wife. Fun, fun, fun. Maybe even become a bishop if they wanted me to be. 

“Mrs. Browne, may I please visit the restroom?” I pipe to her, fake grin crossing my face. She quickly scrawls something on a Sticky Note and signs it with a flourish, attempting to hide the dark circles around her eyes with a large smile and looking like a deranged raccoon instead. Like the one Isa used to draw all the time, the one from the YouTube videos. I smile a bit and walk into the pristine bathroom, locking myself into an end stall so as to not draw too much attention.

All I can do right now is fumble in my large pockets for my phone. Reaching past a pack of Poptarts, I finally reach the shaking device. It seems to have rung only 4 times, so I look at it breathlessly. “A, R,” I begin, commencing my usual ritual of spelling my lifeline before picking up the phone. I start saying the T, but I am stopped when my voice fades. This is the police, from home. Back in Uinta County, where Isa and Ma and Pa and Connor all live. The eerie "(307) 783-6400" stares into the depths of my being, threatening me with the prospect of hometown disaster. I shove the phone against my ear and answer with a high-pitched “hello?”

“Are you ‘Chris Thomas slash Poptarts?’ I am Officer Harold of the Uinta County Police Department or UCPD,” a strange voice begins. I nod, panic filling my being and muffling the logic in me. “You are on Isabella Thomas’s ‘emergency contact list’ and I regret to inform you that she has been assaulted and murdered. We suspect it’s AED, the infamous serial killer vexing local police forces, as she has a cut along her torso resembling a flatlining pulse.” I feel numb. They must be joking, nobody would hurt Isa. She hasn’t stepped a toe out of line her entire life, what could she have gotten herself into? 

No, I’m acting like a little boy all over again. Pull yourself together, Christopher. She’s **gone**. Flitting around on little wings in her own little Heaven with Gramma Cassidy and Sprinkle. Lost forever.

“I-I have to go–” I manage to say, head in a whirlwind of wonder. This can’t be happening, Evanston didn’t have that bad of a crime rate. Sure, it wasn’t all that uncommon to hear of petty robberies, but a full-blown murder was something you didn’t hear of often. I shove my finger down on the red hang-up button and bite back some tears. No, not Isa. She’s too sweet to have this happen, she was only 16! I should have been with her, I should never have left in the first place. I should never have even messaged James, never have said “hi,” I should have just let it be and I would still be staying with her, in that blue split-level by the border of Utah. I’d still be able to help her with her homework. But we’re a million worlds apart. She’s gone, and I’m here, and Connor’s back home and James is caught in Nebraska. Maybe we can get together someday, me and Isa. Maybe I can go join her, maybe this can all come to a stop. I mean, this is a pathetic excuse for an existence, right? Wake up early, eat breakfast, take class, do dormwork, sleep, repeat. And now I know that when I finally go home, Isa won’t be there. It’ll just be Ma and Pa and the first thing they’ll do is yell at me about a C that I got last semester in Physical Education because I’m not flexible in the least. They probably will weep for Isa for, say, a week. But then their lives will snap back to normal, and they will switch to a different meetinghouse, and maybe they won’t even request anything in honor of Isa.

I can’t help but laugh. This situation is too unbelievable, it’s like clickbait. _Crazed Serial Killer Murders 16-Year Old… But You Won’t Believe What The Family Did Next!_ My cackles echo through the washroom. I don’t even care who hears me, I don’t care about anything at this point. My tears get silenced by the snickers.

_I don’t care._


End file.
